The death had come suddenly and unexpectedly.

He was the only son of a widow with no health insurance or viable means of support, a strapping young man who was very smart and very capable.

So when she came home from shopping to find him sprawled out on the living room floor she absolutely lost it.

Being Jewish, the funeral would be the next day. And the flood of emotion kept her up all night. When the undertakers arrived and the solemn procession to the cemetery ensued, she was comforted little by all the people joining her.

As the procession neared the cemetery a stranger approached. He stopped the parade, called to the corpse to wake up. And the young man did.

We can’t imagine the ensuing emotion.

God had brought to life something humanity had pronounced dead. This is what God does.

What if everything that’s ever died will live again?

What if the break up, bankruptcy, depression, and funeral are not the end?

Friends, we may be going through the worst of times (would anyone trade places with that widow?) and God wants us to know that death is not the end.

So what have we declared dead in our lives?  Our marriage, our financial situation, our hope of ever finding meaningful work?  God is working to restore, rebuild, and resurrect. We are the widow. We are the young man. We are the inheritors of resurrection. So why are we letting the things that are bothering us, bother us? Why do we mourn as if we had no hope? We are in God’s hands and God brings life to things that are dead. Period.

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Reading
Thin Blue Smoke – Doug Wargol

Switch – Heath Brothers

The Online Teaching Survival Guide – Boechtter and Conrad